I am extremely pleased you have found it. Before I get started with an introduction of what this page has become and the vision I see as it evolves, allow me to point out that I am nearly ALWAYS available by simply picking up the phone and calling my number 309-634-9536. Every endeavor of the 30+ years of my adult life has involved working the phones. Feel free to email, text, message, comment on
posts or whatever, but if you want me to take you seriously it is as easy as calling the phone number. Moving right along, The Bourbon Hunter page was launched in January 2021 after I realized I had completely underestimated how much interest others had here on social media in our nation’s Bourbon Boom. For more than a decade I have offered a concierge level service for a handful of clients of my Limo company. Long before instacart or grubhub, I, with the help of my drivers, have offered on demand errand running for our best clients throughout Central Illinois. Need a document delivered to Indianapolis? We can do that. Need custom industrial paint booth filters delivered to a factory in Ohio? Yep, we’ve done that. How about a 10ft long 120lb piece of C-channel from Eureka IL to John Deere Headquarters in Moline? I ran that one myself with the boxed part stretched diagonally from the front passenger foot well out the rear driver’s side window of a Lincoln Towncar. Our services are not cheap but we have an extremely high success rate. About ten years ago a client of my company, intent on winning bragging rights at his monthly poker game, handed me a wad of cash and asked me to find a specific bottle of whiskey. As usual, the client gave me a much higher budget than the bottle would cost if I could find it with the usual ‘keep the change’. It took nearly two weeks and probably twenty different stores but I eventually found not just one, but four, of what he wanted. I bought two (with his money) and still had quite a generous tip left. Within a year nearly every member of the poker club (all clients of My Limo Company) were commissioning me to find a couple bottles for them every month. Every time I found an extra it would end up in my personal collection. And then, what many of us refer to as the bourbon boom happened. In hindsight, I cannot pinpoint the exact time frame of an actual boom. It was not some sudden burst of interest one particular day. It has been mostly a gradual increase in interest that continues still today. Launching on to social media. A couple of years ago, during the social media boom of 2020, I became active in dozens of the whiskey and bourbon groups. As I am on call to drive nearly 24/7/365, I rarely have an opportunity to actually partake of my own personal collection that long ago exceeds the amount I can personally consume in the remainder of my lifetime. With a nod from my original 30+/- members of the collective of clients that I jokingly nicknamed The Whiskey Cartel, I began using social media to try to find new members. The rolling shutdowns of bars and restaurants throughout Illinois in 2020 had owners calling me about massive inventories that sat in shuttered establishments. Several of these owners were liquidating bottles they had held back in inventory for 10, 12 even 15 years and this volume was even too large for my cartel. Some of the liquidation deals were dealt with as draft selection where the hat was passed among all participates to collectively purchase from the owner who still was licensed to sell the bottles but were looking at a deadline. Once the group owned the inventory members would take turns picking which bottles would go to their personal collection. In a few instances the draft was outbid by a single offer that I would take to the establishment owner. The buyer would buyout the whole inventory (sales tax and all) and the proprietor would compensate me with a small finder’s fee. Eventually, as my personal collection continued to swell, I began making donations to charity raffles and auctions to help organizations raise funds greater than I would be able to donate without bourbon Some of these events have done really well for the nonprofits and I expect to be promoting even greater numbers in the future. Then, an unexpected result. At some point I realized there was a following growing of strangers on the internet who just wanted to see what I might find next and how they may get one for themselves. The more information I shared the more information would trickle back to me. Yeah, there has always been a bit of resistance from a small minority who think my announcements might damage their odds in raffles or blow up their ‘honey holes’. The end result though is the vast majority of bourbon hunters have embraced my information sharing while the few hecklers have moved on to keep their super duper top secret double classified PUBLICLY ADVERTISED local liquor stores in the ‘I hope nobody ever spends money with the liquor store that has been hooking me up for years’ club. To counter all the nonsensical internet whiskey scammers and the trolly ‘you can’t buy that bottle because I wanted it’ whiners, I began launching some of my own FB groups that specifically address bourbon hunting and the tips fellow hunters share amongst each other. I have put together a pretty solid admin team and all new membership requests are heavily vetted before my own final yay or nay. If you have been viewing my various posts to The Bourbon Hunter page and wondering why it seems you are missing something it is most likely because you are not in all of the groups. Most posts on The Bourbon Hunter page are simply promotional teasers of something I am about to discuss in one of the groups. They are a commercial or advertisement if you will of what may be coming up elsewhere. The goal has always been to explore growing the OG cartel and, if you have read this far, you might have a shot at it, but it is a long road of answering questions and group participation and multiple levels of invites to the next level to make it in. The great news is there is a whole heap of information shared and I personally fund (from my own private collection) scores of great giveaways at no cost to participants other than taking the time to help by contributing some of your own personal bourbon hunting experiences. If you would like to participate, here is a flowchart to get you started…
First, Like and follow this page ‘The Bourbon Hunter’
Second, send a friend request to the appropriate Group Admin
For Illinois Residents:
https://www.facebook.com/Illinois.Bourbon.Hunter
For Ohio Residents:
https://www.facebook.com/Ohio.Bourbon.Hunter
For Texas Residents:
https://www.facebook.com/Texas.Bourbon.Hunter
For US Residents outside of Illinois, Ohio and Texas:
https://www.facebook.com/National.Bourbon.Hunter
Third, -Join the National Bourbon Hunting Guide group at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/nationalbourbonhuntingguide
*must answer all three membership questions to join*
*must answer all three membership questions to join*
*must answer all three membership questions to join*
Follow these three steps and there is a high probability your profile will pass vetting for approval into the National group. During high volume entry periods it may take weeks to sort through all the pending requests but there is a high likelihood of approval if the first three steps are followed. If/when you make it into the National group make sure you participate. Add value to the group by sharing and you will eventually be invited to higher tier groups. Hopefully you will continue to enjoy The Bourbon Hunter page and any of my groups you choose to participate in. Cheers and Happy Hunting! Five Star Tony
The Bourbon Hunter
309-634-9536
